


We are Ozma

by Moonlitdarksword



Category: RWBY
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Study, Gen, Introspection, post v6c8, pre v6c9
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-27
Updated: 2018-12-27
Packaged: 2019-09-28 18:58:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17188538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moonlitdarksword/pseuds/Moonlitdarksword
Summary: As Oscar runs through the streets of Argus, an unexpected encounter makes him reconsider his place in the eternal conflict behind the history of Remnant.





	We are Ozma

Oscar wandered the streets of Argus, rubbing at his forearms to stave off the biting cold of the night. Being an Aura-user was supposed to do something about that, helping him regulate body temperature as well as accelerate his healing, but he couldn’t bring up the effort to conjure that defensive shield. He couldn’t bring up the energy to do anything save run.

Running was a strange choice of words. He hadn’t the energy for it, and he felt no sense of urgency. After Jaune’s outburst, everyone drifted apart, seeking solitude in their own thoughts after the truth had been dumped on them. After a few minutes, Oscar had noticed that the house of was silent, the door was open, and so he simply walked out, going wherever his feet took him.

He found himself strolling downhill, shivering step by step down one of the lesser thoroughfares. The slanted houses cast warm light that bled out into the black sky, where wispy clouds veiled countless stars. A maglev tram ferried a thick throng of people uphill, their attention focused not on the boy shuffling past, but on their journey and destination. All around him, people climbed the hill and sauntered down it and milled about corners at shops and bars and restaurants. This city was one of the safest places on Anima, and because they knew it, people could confidently converse and laugh, living with their eyes on the horizon, an exciting future ahead of them.

_They have no idea_ , Oscar thought ruefully. Say what you would about Ozpin, it was easy to see why he kept the secrets he did. He looked around at the smiling faces in the crowds around him, and reflected back on the Maidens, on the Relics, on Jinn. If the curveballs he had been thrown over the last few days became common knowledge... no, it was too catastrophic to even consider.

Another voice inside him asks _is it really?_ By withholding that knowledge, he put those lives in danger in the first place. The inner circle, RWBY and JNPR...hell, the people of Remnant deserved the truth.

_What truth?_ Another side of his mind countered that dark feeling. The truth that four Relics of unimaginable power were hidden beneath their feet, giving any Kingdom that claimed them an insurmountable advantage? The truth that if those Relics were ever assembled, they would summon a pair of twin deities who would destroy this world if humanity could not meet their standards, if not out of simple spite? The truth that the Grimm, what the people believed to be nothing more than a force of nature, were in fact commanded by an immortal sorceress who sought those very Relics and _could not be destroyed?_

Oscar shook his head, quickening his pace. He needed to get away from all these people; he knew they would scorn him if they only knew what he was. Could he blame his companions for turning away from him? The man who had set them up for an impossible task that had already claimed the lives of so many of their loved ones was living in his head, an unwanted tenant in his grey matter. Their identities would become one someday, whatever that meant. Would Oscar cease to be; would Ozma continue his eternal war with Salem while wearing his skin? Maybe Jaune had been right. Perhaps Ozpin had subsumed his soul since that day he went quiet, a desperate old man crushed by the weight of his unending burden deluding himself into thinking he was a farm boy several thousand years his junior.

He had stepped off the quiet hillside road, dipping into a cramped backstreet. The susurrus of the crowd was already fading, replaced by quiet chuckles and raucous banter as he passed by seedy clubs and bars, their doorways festooned with gaudy neon lights, dizzying strobe lights, and the occasional sign that read “NO FAUNUS.” Maybe Qrow was in one of those bars. He scoffed at the idea. He wanted to see Qrow just as much as he imagined he wanted to see his face. He had been the angriest at those great revelations, his years of unwavering faith finally shaken. He remembered the mental conversations he had with Ozpin when he first left home, telling him stories of his inner circle members, men and women he could trust. Ozpin went at great length about James’ steadfastness, Glynda’s wise insight, Leonardo’s courage (Oscar chuckled darkly at the irony), but his mental tenant sang his praises loudest regarding Qrow Branwen. He described his tenacity, his loyalty, and colourful sense of humour, calling the old Huntsman “the most faithful friend I’ve had in centuries.” Ozpin snarled as he turned another corner. _Some friend._

Another frigid breeze whistled down the dark street, carrying the scent of spices and grilled meat. The wind sent gooseflesh up Oscar’s arms and set off a rumbling in his stomach. Right. Oscar had been so consumed with resignation and doubt that he had completely forgotten about dinner. Grateful for small blessings, Oscar followed the scent down a path further into the backstreet. Had had some Lien in his pocket, and he may as well spend it before someone decided to mug him.

The smell led to a small wooden hut of a building, its tatami windows and austere banners with calligraphies in Ancient Mistrali reminding him of something he’d find in the City of Mistral. Deciphering the symbols and getting a stronger whiff of the aroma, Oscar finally placed the smell. Ramen. It reminded him of that time RWBY and JNPR had their dinner party shortly after reuniting, where they cooked a huge bowl of the broth to share between them. It was a happy memory for both Oscar and Ozpin. It should have led to more. There were so many things Oscar wished had come to pass between them, and now there might never be a chance.

Oscar stepped through the threshold, and before he could place his order, his tongue gummed to the roof of his mouth as he realised who was sitting at the noodle bar. First he saw only his back, a mountainous expanse clad in green in brown. Then the man drew himself up to his full incredible height, making Oscar feel like he was a child half his age, and slowly turned around, regarding the boy with the cold eyes for which he was named.

‘Ozpin,’ said Hazel Rainart, slowly curling his fingers one at a time until his fists were clenched. ‘Why don’t we take this outside?’

* * *

 

Struggling against the older man’s great strength was naturally useless. Oscar had hardly done so, simply frozen with dread as Hazel grabbed him by the arm and dragged him out of the bar and around the corner into an alley, pulling him off his feet at times like he weight no more than a half-filled shopping bag. Once they were out of sight (the regulars of the bar knew better than to interfere with an Aura-user as powerful as Hazel), Hazel took the boy by the scruff of his collar and held him against the wall with force enough to drive the air from Oscar’s lungs.

‘Where is he?’ Hazel asked harshly, his tone as taut as the chain that held the anger within him.

‘What?’ Oscar gasped, trying to catch his breath. ‘What do you—’

‘Still hiding are you, Ozpin?’ Hazel shouted, glaring into Oscar’s eyes, looking past them, beneath them. ‘I’m not surprised you can’t face me. Why let the kid die with you? Afraid to die alone, like she did?’

‘Ozpin isn’t here!’ Oscar cried defensively. A cold silence fell over the alley. ‘He’s gone. I...I don’t know where he is.’

Hazel went silent. He drew a deep breath through his nostrils as he lowered Oscar slightly. Looking up at him made Oscar feel like an ant trying to climb a glacier, infinitesimal and so, so cold.

‘Ozpin doesn’t just “leave” a man’s head,’ Hazel said. ‘He’s like a parasite that worms its way into the deepest veins in your body. Dragging him out into the light will hurt him much less than it’ll hurt you; he’s still in there somewhere. But you’ve still got that some of his knowledge in there, kid, so why not make this easier on both of us and tell me where the Relic is?’

‘Never,’ Oscar answered out of reflex more than anything else. Why bother trying to hide it from him? Even if Hazel dropped dead at this very moment, Salem would just send someone else, and she would keep sending them until she got it. How long could they keep defending the Relics? Fifty years? A hundred? So why did Oscar find himself resisting?

Hazel scoffed at the boy’s defiance. ‘You’re pretty loyal for a kid whose brain is slowly getting hijacked.’

‘Thanks for the reminder,’ Oscar hissed, resenting his situation and slowly beginning to resent this man just as much. ‘He wouldn’t tell you either, for what it’s worth. None of us will. So...’ Oscar broke eye contact, feeling his spirit fade again, ‘...you may as well kill me. You know, while I’m still me.’

Hazel’s eyes went wide, lips parting slightly, and just like that his face was impassively straight again, as if Oscar had never said anything.

‘No,’ he answered, his voice deliberately level. ‘You can still be of use, kid, and if I kill anyone tonight, it has to be _him._ ’

‘What difference does it make?’ Oscar asked bitterly. ‘Kill me now or wait until he comes back, I still die and he just moves on. What’s stopping you?’

‘It’s different,’ Hazel said, raising his voice slightly as he tightened the grip on Oscar’s collar. ‘It’s his fault she’s gone, not yours. It has to be his eyes I look into when I break your—’

‘Has that stopped you before?’ Oscar shouted, glaring defiantly. ‘Does killing me, will killing Ozpin a hundred times over really help?’

‘What are you talking about?’ Hazel asked slowly. He didn’t like this. The kid looked scared only a second ago, but now he looked furious. It had to be Ozpin’s doing. It always was.

‘How many Huntsmen have you killed?’ the boy looked Hazel dead in the eye. ‘When Leo gave you those details, how many did you cross off the list? How many do you think had families? Spouses? Children? Elder brothers?! Did you _ever_ stop to think about that?!’

‘I...’ Fighting down the urge to break the kid in half right there, Hazel took a deep breath through his teeth before he answered. ‘It was Ozpin. He sent those men and women to their deaths. It was him who—’

‘It was you!’ Oscar roared, suddenly finding himself with fire in his blood. How dare he? Who gave him the right to be the executioner of so many good people? Did he really think his grief was more important than theirs? ‘Gods, listening to your excuses makes me want to puke! You can’t bear to think about all the people who lost families, all the Gretchens you took from them, so you don’t!’

‘Boy,’ Hazel’s voice was low in his throat, his eyes clouding with a cold flame of hate as he leaned in closer. ‘Be very careful what you say next.’

‘You constantly blame other people for your own misdeeds because you’re incapable of accepting the responsibility,’ Oscar went on, too incensed to heed the warning. ‘I don’t need a thousand-year-old wizard in my head to see you for what you are. You’re pathetic! Oz told me all about Gretchen; he told me she was brave and strong-of-heart. You’re nothing like her, and you’ll never—’

Howling in outrage, Hazel suddenly spun and tossed Oscar into the opposing wall behind him. The impact reverberated through the brickwork, shaking loose a shower of dust as Oscar slid down to the floor. He let out a rasping cough and tasted blood. Feeling like his skull was replaced with a kettlebell, he slowly lifted his head to look at the giant approaching him. His bearded face had returned to being a stoic mask, but no amount of dissembling could hide the fury in his eyes.

‘Good job, kid,’ he hissed, his voice tight with forced restraint. ‘And here I thought Ozpin was the only person in the world who could still piss me off. Been a while since I’ve been _this_ angry, since I’ve felt anything at all.’ Then he knelt down, eye level with the boy leaned against the cold wall. Oscar still glared up at him with eyes full of steel.

‘Despite what you say, Ozpin _is_ still in there, and he knows where the Relics are,’ Hazel went on. ‘Her Grace will know what to do with you, and she’s going to make you wish I killed you here.’

Without any warning, Hazel's fist flashed forward and struck Oscar on the cheek, tearing reality away at the seams.

* * *

 

‘Oscar.’

Oscar awoke somewhere white. All around him s was a creamy desolation, an absence of light and darkness as far as he could see. The only reason he even differentiate from up or down was because it felt like he was standing on something solid. He looked down (?) and saw nothing but more endless whiteness. The only thing he could be certain of was his own body, and of the voice that woke him.

‘Oscar.’

He turned around, trying to summon that steel he suddenly felt when confronted by Hazel. Behind him, he saw thin man in his fifties. His head was a mop of grey hair, and he wore a black suit with a green shirt and emerald cravat. From the sound of his voice, there was no questioning the identity of this stranger.

‘You know, I’ve lost many good people because they insulted Hazel,’ said Professor Ozpin. His tone was conversational, but he could not hide the weariness from his posture or face.

‘Pretty dumb, right?’ Oscar shrugged, deigning not to look at his tenant. ‘I didn’t expect to get so mad. When I thought about his reasons, and about what he was doing, it was like something snapped. Where does he get off? Does he think he’s the only person who lost someone they cared about?’

‘In the first few years after Gretchen’s death, Hazel wandered the world lacking for a purpose,’ Ozpin informed him. He didn’t look at the boy, feeling unworthy of meeting his gaze. ‘I should have reached out to him, but he was too angry with me, as he had every right to be. Then Salem found him. She was a way of taking simple desires and using them to shape a soul into an ideal tool. He wanted justice for what happened to Gretchen, and over the years, Salem convinced him that the only way he could get that justice was if he killed me and anyone who pledged themselves to me, and keep killing until...’ Ozpin sighed. ‘...Well, for the rest of his life, essentially.’

‘You’ve seen something like this before, haven’t you?’ Oscar asked, even though he knew full well what that answer would be.

‘Too many times.’

They said nothing for some time, both looking into the endless expanse in a vain search for anything but each other. The silence was a heavy fog, and Oscar broke through with the question he had been meaning to ask for days.

‘Why?’ he growled, looking Ozpin right in the eye. ‘Why did you leave us like that? Even if we were mad at you for all you hid from us, we still needed you.’

‘There was nothing I could tell you that would not eventually figure out for yourselves,’ Ozpin stated flatly. ‘You’ve made that abundantly clear.’

‘Oh, don’t give me that!’ Oscar snapped. ‘When Jinn aired out your dirty laundry, you locked yourself away because you couldn’t handle the shame.’

‘Would you have handled it any better?’ Ozpin asked, his tone a measure tighter. ‘I was much like you, once. We _all_ were. I thought was going to be the one to do it, Ozma’s last host, the one who would defeat Salem and redeem humanity, but then I came to realise that it wasn’t that simple.’

‘I think the word is “impossible,”’ Oscar scoffed.

‘You see what I mean?’ Ozpin shouted. Oscar flinched as Ozpin raised his voice for the first time since he first heard it all those months ago. ‘I’ve felt that same despair. The least I could do was spare anyone else from that same thing.’

‘Then why keep going?’ Oscar asked, not even feeling the energy to stay angry anymore. ‘If you’ve known all these centuries that Salem couldn’t be killed, then why did you keep fighting her?’

‘I can’t believe you’d even ask that,’ Ozpin responded, his face a disturbed mask of shock and offense. ‘Even I don’t know what Salem’s designs for the Relics are, but I refuse to let them come to fruition. I kept fighting for a single reason: because Salem commits countless atrocities in her search for the Relics, and I could not just stand by and do nothing. I thought you, of all people, would understand that!’

Oscar blinked, looking intently at Ozpin. Was it really that simple? All at once, Oscar realised that it was. The others, Ruby in particular, would never stop fighting, even if they were going to lose eventually. They knew all that mattered was that they kept fighting to the bitter end.

‘Of course, it is over now,’ Ozpin sighed, looking despondently at his feet. ‘Hazel is bringing you to Salem now, and her methods of extracting information are too horrid to describe. I can’t apologise enough for what you are about to go through. She’ll know where to find the Relics and their associated Maidens in time, and then perhaps all this will _finally_ come to an end.’

‘No,’ Oscar whispered, fists tightening into tense balls. Ozpin sighed again.

‘Oscar, I’m afraid—’

‘NO!’ the boy roared. All of a sudden he rushed at the older man, grabbing the lapels of his jacket. ‘Are you giving up? You don’t get to give up! I won’t let you!’

‘I’m afraid me taking over will change little about the situation,’ Ozpin said, looking away from the boy suddenly in his face. ‘I doubt our travelling companions will even accept my help.’

‘Then use me!’ Oscar snapped. Ozpin blinked, taken aback.

‘I...’ He looked the boy in the eye, his own eyes wide with trepidation. ‘What are you saying?’

‘If you still can’t face the others, if you want to give up, then you can pass it on to me,’ Oscar said, staring the professor in the eye. ‘Your knowledge, your magic, your burden; let me take it all. That power keeps passing on so that it can protect the people of Remnant, and I’ll use it to do just that, even if you won’t!’

Ozpin was stunned, his jaw hanging as he considered the boys’ words. ‘Do you know what you’re asking of me? Under ideal circumstances, I would have let you see into more and more of my memories over time, let you make more decisions under my authority, and then eventually, I would stop speaking altogether. Oscar, you’re asking me to do in mere moments what ought to take place over several years.’

‘That’s time we don’t have,’ Oscar said. ‘If my destiny is to fight, I will. Even if I can’t win, I won’t run from this.’

‘Oscar,’ the older man interrupted. ‘This experience...you cannot go through it and remain unchanged. Are you sure about this?’

Oscar pressed his lips into a line and clenched his fists. It would be dishonest to say the thought of no longer being him did not terrify him, but the last few days have shown some things were more frightening. If he had the power to spare others from facing such horrors, then he would use that power to protect others from that fear, whatever the cost. ‘I’ve never been surer of anything in my life. Do it.’

Ozpin closed his eyes, bowing his head deeply as his posture slackened. ‘Very well.’

Suddenly, Ozpin spread out his arms, and the whiteness behind him became a swirling kaleidoscope. Like inks poured into water, the colours spread out into the void and towards Oscar. He sensed something ancient in those encroaching tones, something alien yet intimately familiar.

‘Needless to say, after this is done, I will be gone,’ Ozpin calmly informed him, unfazed as the wild colours began to swirl faster and faster around them. ‘The only reason I stayed with you so long was for this very moment. I will pass my torch and then join the countless men who came before us.

‘It is your turn now, Oscar Pine,’ he went on, though Oscar could see him no longer. He saw only the maelstrom of colour, and within it he saw wars long forgotten, Kingdoms long fallen, injustices that should have been avenged long ago. Everything every vessel of Ozma ever thought or felt poured into his mind; all these men who were not him yet at the same time were him. His mind and soul were fragmenting, his ego screaming as it began to bend under the pressure, but through it all, he thought he could see Ozpin smile.

‘I will be going now, but remember, as long as you hold these memories and use them for the purpose they were intended, you will never be alone. Farewell.’

Infinite colour gave way to darkness.

* * *

 

‘Oscar...Oscar!’

Someone was screaming. He first heard the voice shouting in his face, and then he heard the chorus of terror shrieking in the distance. Feeling began to return to his extremities, along with what felt like a massive bruise on his face, and sounds became more distinct: he heard the drone of a siren in the air, the crackling of fire, and the growls of beasts in a ghastly symphony driven by the bass of gunshots and explosions. He tried to prise open his eyes, and a blur of blue and blond hovered inches from his face.

‘Oscar, you’re waking up, thank goodness!’ Jaune cried. He was knelt about a metre away from Oscar’s prone body, white light pouring from his outstretched hand, his shoulders slack with relief.

‘What’s...going on?’ Oscar asked absentmindedly, his attention now taken by his memory. His mind was his, but he had more memories now, memories that shouldn’t be there.

‘Salem’s goons tried to capture you,’ Jaune reported. ‘We managed to get you out of there; you were hurt pretty bad, so they sent me off with you.’

‘And the sirens?’ Oscar asked, only half-listening as he perused this new wealth of memory. Oscar had first met Jaune in the safehouse in Mistral, but looking again, it felt as though he known him much longer.

‘Grimm,’ Jaune said. ‘Hundreds. They sabotaged the relay tower and defence systems in order to let them in. They’re pulling out all the stops to get that Relic, and...’ He trailed off, looking away as he deactivated his Semblance. ‘I’m sorry. I never should have said those things to you, and I know full well you’d be the most worried about...well, everything with Ozpin. I was stupid.’

‘No, I don’t think so,’ Oscar shook his head. He remembered a day back on the farm when he was hard at work spreading fertiliser over the field, a day like any other, yet he remembered being somewhere else at the exact same time, talking to different people who were as strange as they were familiar. ‘You might not have been the pinnacle of social grace, but your teammates trust your judgement. You know that we’ve been put in an unfair situation, and I know how difficult it is to deal with the frustration of handling the cards your friends have been dealt.’

‘Hold on,’ Jaune narrowed his eyes. ‘Ozpin?’

Oscar shook his head. ‘No...with a little bit of “yes.” It’s hard to explain. I’m still Oscar, but I have Ozpin’s memories. They go back...I don’t know how far they go back.’ His eyes widened as suddenly memories of agony flooded back. ‘I remember dying hundreds of times: to Cinder’s arrows, to Salem’s magic, to the Grimm, to war, disease, starvation, dehydration; once by falling into a cement mixer.’

Jaune winced. ‘Talk about embarrassing.’

‘I remember Pyrrha,’ Oscar went on. He saw how Jaune’s face suddenly went grim, and looked him firmly in the eye. ‘I know how much she meant to you. I’m sorry. There might’ve been another way, but I was too stupid to see it.’

Jaune put a firm hand on the boy’s shoulder. ‘That wasn’t you, Oscar. Well, I guess maybe now...ugh, this is confusing.’

‘Try being me, whoever that is,’ Oscar chuckled. It really seemed like a difficult question from his perspective. He felt mostly like how he did before tonight, when he still had control over his body, but how could he not feel different after all the things he had experienced second-hand? Looking back at all those millennia of pain and hardship, it made his fourteen years on that farm seem so insignificant. No, not insignificant. If anything it reminded him of what he had to do now.

It reminded him that he was never alone. In his first few lifetimes, Ozma worked in absolute secrecy, determined to let his eternal burden be his alone. However, he would inevitably cross paths with like-minded men and women who knew of Salem and also wanted her gone. Though at first he spurned their help, they eventually sought him out again, followed by their children and grandchildren. Soon, he realised that their well-meaning actions helped him prevent many catastrophes, and so he welcomed them with open arms and founded a brotherhood that would endure for generations. Where Salem gained her followers through temptation and fear, Ozma sought the nobility in every soul, offering his trust in order to nurture a person’s better qualities, for example, showing Qrow that he didn’t have to go back to being a bandit. Ozma learned that anyone could be better than they were before, if given the right nudges.

‘You could have lived a normal life if you hadn’t forged those transcripts,’ Oscar said, getting Jaune’s attention. ‘After the Fall of Beacon, no one would have blamed you if you went back to being a civilian. So why did you join Ruby?’

‘That’s easy,’ Jaune said, nodding resolutely. ‘Cinder was still out there, and she was going to keep hurting people. I couldn’t just sit there and do nothing.’

‘Even if you knew it was a battle you couldn’t win?’

‘Then I’d keep fighting,’ Jaune insisted, fists tightening. ‘Even if I eventually bit the dust, every life we saved along the way was a victory.’

‘Is it really so different right now?’ Jaune shook him response to Oscar’s query, realising where he’d been led.

‘I don’t know,’ he answered impatiently. ‘If you’re in shape to fight, we should get back in there. Once this fight’s over, we can figure it all out once we know everyone’s safe.’

Oscar smiled warmly. ‘You’re a good person, Jaune Arc. You and others like you are the reason I believe we _can_ defeat Salem. I don’t know how, I just believe.’

Jaune wasn’t entirely sure how to respond to that, so he simply gave a quick nod and drew his sword. ‘Right. Now come on, the others need us.’

‘Go on ahead,’ Oscar said, drawing the cane from the back of his belt and pointing down a different street, ‘I’ll head off that way. There could be people who need our help over there.’

‘Gotcha,’ Jaune agreed. ‘Don’t keep us waiting.’ With that, Jaune ran shield-first back into the fiery night, and Oscar watched him. He twirled his cane as he surveyed the rooftops. He would join the others shortly. There was one more person he needed to talk to, and then he had a city to save.

* * *

 

The Seer floated unnoticed on the roof of an abandoned storefront, and through it Salem watched Argus burn. She had her doubts about Watts’ plan, but from the sea of flames and death she surveyed, it all went better than expected. He compromised the relay tower through its technical staff, sabotaging the Grimm radar after a few well-placed bribes and threats. Meanwhile, Hazel, Tyrian, Mercury and Emerald would seek out the travellers and the Relic, encouraging them to be messy in order to spread the negativity needed to call the swarm. She hardly expected such catastrophic results so quickly, yet by utter coincidence, Adam Taurus had found his way to Argus and rallied the White Fang cell there under his command, instigating race riots that her followers took full advantage of.

Salem was overall quite pleased with the swarm’s progress as it chewed through the population of Argus, feeling more relaxed as more of these... _humans_ died, those pale shadows of the people the Younger Brother condemned to extinction. She doubted Ozma would be so quick to leap to their defence if he knew where they came from. The only worthy ones among were the Maidens, again just laughable imitations of things that were long gone, and the Silver-Eyed Warriors, who were something else entirely. She had already made arrangements for the last among them to be brought to her, hopefully before Cinder kills the girl. Oh yes, Salem was well aware of the Fall Maiden’s plans; even if the Parasite did not offer her a window into her soul, Cinder’s intentions were painfully transparent. Well, it was no great matter. The death of Ruby Rose would only slow down her plans by a few centuries, so Salem would use that time to locate the Relic of choice and find a suitable candidate for the next Fall Maiden, and then she would let Cinder know exactly what happened to followers hubristic enough to defy a direct order.

There was moment to the left of the Seer, and Salem had no time to send instructions to it when something struck it. The Seer reacted autonomously, whipping its barbed tentacles at the assailant Salem could not see. She could feel its surrounding through her bond with it, felt its pain as something blunt and thin jabbed at it repeated from a hundred angles, felt a feeling of restraint as the blunt instrument wrapped itself in its tentacles, immobilising it and wrestling it to the ground. She saw a face having above the Seer, young and freckled, and she knew who it was simply from the look in his eye.

‘Hello, Salem,’ said Oscar, looking into the struggling Seers reflective chitin and seeing the scowling ashen face that he once thought was the most beautiful thing in the world.

‘Ozma,’ Salem hissed. ‘Hazel said your new host was young, but I’m rather surprised. It seems you really have no shame.’

‘Unfortunately, I’m not here to chat,’ Oscar said. ‘When a Seer dies, the other creatures of Grimm become less organised. That should make things easier for this town’s defenders.’

‘Something about you is familiar, yet also somewhat new,’ Salem noted. ‘Is the merge already complete? That’s irritating. When Cinder killed Ozpin, you were supposed to be taken out of the game for years, perhaps decades.’

‘What can I say?’ Oscar shrugged, a difficult gesture when one was trying to keep a Grimm pinned down. ‘You’ve given me a lot of practice.’

‘You’ll have another round of practice soon enough,’ Salem smirked. ‘Every creature of Grimm in Argus has your scent now, and my followers know your face. You’re going to die yet again. I can’t give you an exact number, I’m afraid. I lost count around four thousand years ago.’

‘I don’t care what happens to me,’ Oscar said resolutely. ‘You can try to scare me all you like, but that doesn’t change what I have to do.’

‘Well, fear certainly changed Leonardo’s priorities,’ Salem noted, and for a second, Oscar didn’t respond, refusing to rise to her bait. Oscar instead looked directly into the Seer’s projection, staring directly into her glowing eyes.

‘I’m sorry, Salem,’ he sighed. The unexpected apology sent a sudden pulse of fury through Salem’s blackened veins. ‘For everything. I hope one day I can say it and it will finally be enough.’

With that, Oscar brought his cane down upon the Seer, shattering its glassy exoskeleton with a ghastly screech. As he watched its carcass crumble away into ash and vapour, he wondered about how odd it was he knew a stranger so well. Memory was another component of identity, so it made sense that having so much knowledge and experience crammed into his mind would change him by nature of its very existence. It was as Salem said to him. He was no longer just Oscar Pine, he was an Oscar Pine that carried the thoughts and feelings of those who came before. He was Ozma, and he would succeed in the task the Elder Brother gave him, because he knew humanity had a simple nobility and their souls, and as long as they possessed it, they were worth protecting. No matter how many lifetimes it took, Oscar would help this world lead its own way into salvation.

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, wow, it's been ages since I've posted anything. Life's been a little more busy since I got my new job, but the lack of posting was mainly due to a massive lack of inspiration and the fact that most of my creative juices were put into my DnD campaign. Now that its over, and Volume 6 has been so fucking good lately, I felt like doing something related to the Farm Boi. Once thing I'll tell you, when you spend over a year being unable to concentrate on any Word doc for more than two or three sentences, sitting down to teh computer three or four times a day over two weeks and cranking out 200-400 words each time feels so good, I can barely describe.
> 
> Either way, V6C9 comes out on Saturday, and I am so excited. As is courtesy, leave a comment telling me what you thought and leave a Kudos as well, but only if you really want to. See you guys later.


End file.
